I don't know if it's attention spans or w/e but it does feel like fewer people of all generations are reading now, and when they do read, they just want slop. Anything that demands engagement or effort from the reader is denounced as 'badly written'. It drives me a bit mad tbh, because at the same time that people smugly reject good literature, you can see that they're unfulfilled reading the same old dreck for the millionth time.

A common thing I used to see on Book Twitter was people complaining at the lack of beautifully written prose that focuses on the interior life and I just want to scream THAT'S MODERNISM YOU'RE DESCRIBING MODERNISM, READ THE WAVES, PLEASE READ THE WAVES, IT WILL MOVE YOU SO DEEPLY, but the thing is that while they want that, they also only read YA dystopian fiction written in the past simple as an iron rule.

As a former educator that worked with teenagers for some time, I can tell you that it's possible to get kids interested in literature because they are still open to new ideas and can get downright habitual with their reading with the right encouragement, but unfortunately the Bill Gates-driven ruinous "reforms" that have dominated public schools for decades now have dictated that reading only matters as far as it teaches future workers to read and follow instructions, not how to think critically. Critical thinking was, and continues to be, something that a lot of parents outright abhor and see as some sort of evil influence.

Also, by default, most kids that cruise through school with apathetic teachers follow the defaults given to them, which are to aspire to escape peonage by becoming a parasocial parasite instead.

IT SUCKS IT SUCKS IT SUCKS

I'm begging anyone in my immediate circle to just read a book or think about what they watch just a little. You don't have to be a scholar, God knows I'm not either, but it's so BORING. I dunno, maybe it's me, but I try to like, have a slightly in-depth conversation about any piece of media or art or whatever with someone and I just get nothing. We're all hooked up to the slop spigot and can't turn it off.

Also GET OFF YOUR FUCKING PHONE WHEN WE'RE HANGING OUT.

I'm not of that age, but imo it's more a technological thing than a generational thing. People, of any age, cannot put their phones down. I personally have to make the conscious decision to disconnect if I'm going to read something or watch a movie or whatever. I imagine that for people who grew up with smartphones, that's like cutting off a limb.

In that sense, yes absolutely. There's a huge prevalent mindset of anti-intellectualism and hopelessness that leads to individualistic hustle culture with no appreciation for the arts. I think you'd see the same thing in any nascent fascist society in history, where any actual love for art is replaced by much shallower symbols in the service of reinforcing hegemonic masculinity. But even among my leftier friends, if I send them a message that's longer than 2 sentences I'm very likely to receive an "I ain't reading all that" (even a literal 3 sentence message).

I think music has probably retained a similar relevance for my age group as previous ones, but the way that people engage with music is a lot more easy come easy go, which means that unless you have a specific kind of personality you're unlikely to try to dig much meaning out of music, especially men with lower emotional intelligence. But there's still the same drive to make music a part of your identity, just shallower.

Not a man but I am in the age range. I mean it may be the case that more people are turning to parasocial relationships and falling into manosphere holes because of the internet. But also idk, maybe we've got to take stock of how misogyny plays a role into all this? Most men (and I truly mean, like 99% of them) don't want to unpack the way they hold privilege and power over women. In decades past in which men were reading books more, they also had legal control over their wives? Women were gatekept out of academia for centuries. We live in a patriarchy and that needs to factor into any analysis of men as a social class that happens.

ITT, generationalism bullshit. sigh.

Youre also asking rich white kids on a leftie forum

Now that you mention it, yeah. Of my school cohort, me and my best friend at school are the only guys in the year who went into the arts. It's actually kind of insane.

At my uni, I was one of 2 guys in my class. In the whole year, it was me and maybe like 2 other guys who had any sort of traditional male hobbies/ways of presenting. Otherwise it was camp gay men, and a couple of straight guys who were just like, idk, theatre kids.

I think it speaks to a socioeconomic thing too though. Most other guys I meet who are in the arts are living off daddy's money.

These are consequences of living in a system that rewards your individualism.

I am in that age bracket, and when I was in college I found it quite difficult to get friends just because of that. Young men are easily influenced by capitalist propaganda, and not only are they manipulable, but they like to feel that way. So, most commonly, they feel like they're in a competition all the time. If they read philosophy, they read about individualism and idealism (if they read philosophy at all). If they read fiction, they read only the misogynistic and crass author, and so on.

Of course, today we live in the society of spectacle, so these people do not usually read, but are merely educated by images. This, coupled with zero critical thinking, simply generates a wave of stupid, misogynistic and individualistic people.

Anecdotal, but my friend is a high school math teacher and said most of the dudes want to be in real estate. So, at least in that particular high school the grindset pipeline seems to be in full effect.

I quit reading the minute I got a smart phone

I don't know if anyone has said this, cause there's a lot to read here, but I think you're just seeing all this online. Nobody posts on their social media that they just enjoyed X, Y, or Z literature or art. I won't say for sure that this is because the people who take the time to genuinely enjoy these things don't really give a fuck to tell everybody else about it, but that's what I think is happening.

I'm pretty sure there's a term for this phenomenon that I can't think of right now, but yeah you're just getting exposed to drivel that is not representative of actual people.

I'm older than this range, but still a "Zillenial" for context.

I'm in that age bracket and male and among the people I know reading literature is basically nonexistent. I constantly see people browse Instagram when randomly bored so a bunch of organizations use Instagram as their primary means of communication then I end up browsing Instagram to get updates from those organizations and get addicted to it like everyone else. Video games are social and also addicting so people prefer those over literature as well. Aside from that people have very limited time and want to spend the few moments of free time they have doing things that are more social, more engaging (which black marks on a white paper doesn't do a great job at, I can barely pay attention to them for like 2 minutes), or more relevant to their hobbies or future. With music on the other hand I've seen differently, a lot of people use Spotify frequently and I've met quite a few people who have strong interests in certain bands or genres. Also while the internet has caused all sorts of problems regarding addiction and misinformation and people not being as social, I think it has also caused people to be more connected and empathetic on a large scale since they see the struggles of people outside of their physical social bubble.

I'm a little out of this age range but I feel like my friends kinda grew out of that mindset. Like I knew a guy who wanted to get into real estate a few years ago, but nowadays he's a firefighter and certified EMS. Maybe it's a little later than previous generations but most people get their shit together by their late 20s, seems like.